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On the evening of May 5, 1993, in the small town of West Memphis, Arkansas, three eight-year-old boys disappeared. The next afternoon, the naked bodies of Stevie Branch, Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore were found submerged in a nearby stream. The boys had been bound from ankle to wrist with their own shoelaces and severely beaten. Christopher had been castrated.

The crime scene had yielded few clues, and despite Christopher's castration, there was a remarkable absence of blood. The police were stymied, and citizens' alarm mounted as weeks passed without an arrest. Finally, a month after the murders, detectives announced three arrests -- and a startling theory of the crime: that the children had been killed by members of a satanic cult.

Detectives attributed their break in the case to a former special education student, seventeen-year-old Jessie Misskelley Jr. Although Jessie insisted he knew nothing of the crime, after eight hours of questioning, police announced that he had implicated himself and accused two other teenagers, eighteen-year-old Damien Echols and sixteen-year-old Jason Baldwin. Damien and Jason both denied Jessie's account, and Jessie himself recanted it within hours, but by then all three had been charged with the murders.

With no physical evidence connecting anyone to the crime, prosecutors contended that the murders bore signs of "the occult" and that the three accused teenagers possessed a "state of mind" that pointed to them as the killers. As proof of the defendants' mental states, they introduced items taken from their rooms -- such as books by Anne Rice and album posters for the rock group Metallica. Jurors found all three teenagers guilty. Jessie and Jason were sentenced to life in prison. Damien was sentenced to death.

While the verdicts were popular in Arkansas, an HBO documentary raised questions about the lack of evidence in the case, and a Web site was formed to support the inmates, now known as "The West Memphis Three." When the Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed the verdicts, state officials insisted that anyone who questioned the trials simply did not know "the facts."

Now, for the first time, an award-winning investigative reporter examines that official stand. In riveting narrative, Devil's Knot draws readers into the drama of a modern-day courtroom dominated by references to Satan. In laying out "the facts" of this still-unfolding case, it offers a frightening look into America's system of justice.

Average Customer Rating:

Great Read	Customer Rating:
The author has a way of keeping the reader informed and not overwhelmed. With so many names and locations, a huge amount of confusion is likely but doesn't happen. I feel well informed about a troubling case. I highly recommend you read this book.

Ignorance, Poverty, and Pain

Customer Rating:

I wouldn't read JUST one book and decide if three convicted teenagers were innocent, but I could (and will) make a good judgment on all the adults involved in this case of three teenagers accused and convicted of murdering three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis, Ark. All the adults should be ashamed of themselves--including the police, the lawyers, the judges, the parents, and a couple of the witnesses. And certainly the three convicted teenagers deserve new trials. Leveritt's story is good, although I believe that a good TIMELINE of all events would have served the reader better. I used a calendar to note dates of events on each character in the story and some of events make no sense. However, that said, the police did not make a case against the accused. Their chief witness was another child named Aaron Hutchinson, who supposedly witnessed the crime, although he was spared death. And he was never called to testify. The other evidence was the confession of Jessie Misskelley, an angry, confused young boy of seventeen, whose outlook on life was that of a eight-year-old, too. What lies beneath all this mess is Ignorance, Poverty, and Pain. The three murder victims were killed in a wooded area near their homes, yet, even with all the writings, we do not know how they were really killed. Who could re-enact the crime? Who could explain a timeline of events on how these children were killed, their clothes stripped, their bikes dumped. Two drowned. One bled to death. But how? They don't even know when? [There are some great photos of the crime scene online.] And what is the timeline on the accused and convicted? Where were the three accused when the murder victims were let out of school. How did they get to the wooded area without being seen? How long did it take the accused and convicted to carry out the events, how did they, and then make their escape, without being seen or heard, in a small wooded area that is more or less about 2 acres of land between a subdivision and an Interstate service road. The emotional pain that all of the children in this story suffered is a crime in itself. This whole case needs to be redone, not just for those convicted, but for the murdered boys, for the self-respect of a police department that was unable to serve its community, and the JUDGE!--who still sits in judgment on this case after all these years! Let someone else make a decision. All the boys, the accused and convicted and the three murder victims need a fresh look. I live in north Mississippi. After reading this book, I've decided to go take a look at the scene myself. Whatever really happened, the trials were indeed like witchhunts, along with hysteria, and some of the evidence being who owned how many black T-Shirts! Lastly, the why? That's too long a post. But why did this all happen--the murders, the shoddy investigation, the trials with talk of Satan, Sodomy, and black T-Shirts?

Uncovered...nothing	Customer Rating:
If Damien looked like Franken-Byers instead of the lead singer of Good Charlotte, not one of these "activists" would have lifted their heads from their soy lattes to take a second look at this case. Not that they looked at the facts anyway.

Fascinating	Customer Rating:
A must read for anyone that is familiar with this tragic story. Very well written. FREE THE WEST MEMPHIS 3 and find the real killers of these little boys.

Bizarre and astonishing case; excellent reporting

Customer Rating:

Since I watched Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills, I have been learning what I could about the case of Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelly ("The West Memphis Three"), and Mara Leveritt's book compiles a vast amount of information on the case-- a case that just gets stranger at every turn. The major drawback I could see was that Leveritt seems to assume the three are innocent. I lean toward thinking that they are, but there are still some odd facts that need to be resolved for me to completely believe that they are. She hints at the fact that there is evidence pointing to the teens' guilt, but also points out that, frustratingly, the police investigators who hint at this refuse to speak openly about it. Whether or not they are guilty, the amount of secrecy, bungling, and prejudice surrounding this case is infuriating, and all but unbelievable in a country where citizens, if they are to be sentenced, must be proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Leveritt also weakens her argument by focusing on John Mark Byers, stepfather of one of the victims, as one of the only other suspects. Byers has certainly lived an outlaw's life, and made many bizarre and self-incriminating statements (for instance, that he himself had been tortured as a child in a way that was very similar to the way the three 8-year-old boys were murdered). However, recent DNA evidence seems to link Terry Hobbs (stepfather of another of the victims) to the scene of the crime, but he is hardly mentioned in Leveritt's book. In all fairness, she couldn't have foreseen this development, but I hoped that she would investigate each of the victims' families in more depth. I highly recommend this book, mostly because I would like people to know about the case of the West Memphis Three, but also because the case is well-told and highly interesting.